The Art of Rest

The Art of Rest, Adam Mabry (The Good Book Company, 2018)

I often have a book about rest on my shelf waiting to be read. I’m sure it is due to God’s gentle prompting that I grab it when we go on holidays. For me, times of leave are good times to think further about rest and its purpose. In the past, I have delved into The Art of Rest (Claudia Hammond), and Refresh (Shona & David Murray) as well as others that touch on this idea: The Busy’s Christian’s Guide to Busyness, Serving without Sinking, Zeal without Burnout, Going the Distance, and so on.

I really liked this short book from Adam Mabry. He starts acknowledging he is an unlikely candidate to write about rest, having pushed himself too much for way too long. Yet, he also concedes - if he has been able to learn how to rest, you can too.

Overarching the book are two themes - rest is a gift (from God, given for very good reasons) and rest is an art (there is no one way to do it, but rather to find ways that suit you).

Beginning with a history lesson of rest and why God has given it to us, we are reminded that it is truly a gift from a loving God: 

“If God is a hurried taskmaster constantly turning knobs and pushing buttons, frantically refining his work, it's hard to imagine resting with him. But if God the Father, Son, and Spirit are the very definition of love, and fundamentally relational, and the idea of resting with him becomes more than imaginable. It becomes desirable.” 

What struck me was his link to the fact that once the temple was a place to meet God, now that we have the spirit and our bodies are a temple to the Lord. So, he calls the Sabbath a time temple - a chance for us to stop and rejoice in God in our lives, “but do we have the time -do we make the time - to Sabbath, to experience a time holy to God?”

Following chapters explore:

• Rest allows remembering - God, ourselves, the meaning of life, and grace. 

“The story of the whole Bible is in many ways the story of a people who always forget their God and a God who always remembers his people”

• Rest is resistance. All work is done for one of two ends - to glorify God or justify your existence, “rest is an act of profound resistance against the siren call of self justification”. Rest helps us to resist anxiety, autonomy, coercion and idolatry. 

• Rest restores relationships - with God and others. There were four questions for self-examination: 

1. Are you really interested in having a relationship with God? 
2. Where is rushing ruining your relationship with God and others? 
3. In what ways have your tried to silence your inner murmur of self-reproach? 
4. Will you stop waiting to rest? 

• Rest brings reward. ”Rest anticipates the destination along the journey, because it offers an experience akin to being at the destination even while we are on the journey.” 

• Gifts of real rest - reward of memory (who we are in Christ), reflection, security (in our sonship), endurance (“if we want to keep going, we need to keep stopping”) and anticipation.

He finishes with what resting might actually look like. First, it’s not about following a rule, rather finding patterns that suit you daily (small allowances to breathe, pray, eat, reflect and worship), weekly, and annually. He suggests including: sleep, reading, prayer, reflection, avocation (eg hobbies, something that is not your job), recreation, eating, and singing, but with the encouragement to find your own activities of rest.

A very helpful book. Short and concise, but with enough to prompt thought and encouragement, and hopefully a desire to rest, understanding it is indeed a gift and an art, and necessary to grow in in order to thrive.